Windy City Media Group Frontpage News

THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

home search facebook twitter join
Gay News Sponsor Windy City Times 2023-12-13
DOWNLOAD ISSUE
Donate

Sponsor
Sponsor
Sponsor

  WINDY CITY TIMES

BOOKS Lesbian co-author discusses 'No More Police: A Case for Abolition'
by Angelique Smith
2022-10-18

This article shared 2453 times since Tue Oct 18, 2022
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email


"We don't need all the answers to start down the road toward where we want to go: a world where everyone has safety, food, clean water, shelter, education, health, art, beauty, and rest."—No More Police: A Case for Abolition.

No More Police is a lot of things—a foundational guide that's not afraid to ask questions, a resource hub, a narrative changer, an exploration of the long legacy of abolition. But, most of all, it is a compelling call to action that takes the most frequently asked questions and tensions around abolition and breaks them down.

Written by nationally recognized policing and criminalization expert Andrea J. Ritchie and best-selling author Mariame Kaba, the book flowed from their work as co-founders of Interrupting Criminalization ( www.interruptingcriminalization.com/ ), an initiative created to fight the over-criminalization of women, girls, trans individuals and gender nonconforming people of color.

Windy City Times spoke with Ritchie, a Black lesbian and former Chicago resident who is also a survivor of state and personal violence.

Windy City Times: What led you to create this book with co-author Mariame Kaba?

Andrea J. Ritchie: In 2020, the demands to defund the police were gaining traction following the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. There was also a lot of confusion being sown by politicians and policymakers around what the demand really was, "Well, they don't really mean completely cut the whole budget! They just mean that if everyone else's budget is being cut, then we should also cut the police budget."

WCT: There still seems to be confusion.

AJR: There's been this effort to manage the demand and repackage it, so Mariame wrote a piece for the New York Times ( www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html ) that said, "Yes, we really do want to abolish the police."

WCT: What does abolition look like through a Black, queer and trans feminist lens?

AJR: For me, it's a world where Black women, queer and trans people have everything they need to survive and thrive without policing, surveillance, punishment, or exile in any form. When we think about people who are living at the intersections of multiple structures of oppression, the premise of Black feminism will produce increased safety for everyone.

WCT: Right.

AJR: I also want to lift up another Black feminist, Erin Miles Cloud, who said it in a way that continues to capture it for me: "Everyone cares about someone's safety somewhere some of the time. Abolitionists care about everyone's safety everywhere all of the time."

WCT: And what does that mean to you?

AJR: That means we care about Black trans women's safety when Black trans women are facing some of the highest levels of violence in the country. That means we care about Black women's safety when Black women are experiencing the highest levels of every kind of violence: economic, medical, certainly community violence and, by some measures, police violence.

WCT: The book talks about how the current notion of public safety depends on sexual and gendered order; how that regulation is a way of enforcing a white, middle class, heteronormative, ableist standard of living as a condition of social acceptance.

AJR: It's so apparent in this moment where there are attacks on trans young people accessing gender-affirming care, space to play sports, to use the bathroom or locker room. Attacks on books that reference the existence of queer and trans people, queer story hours in libraries. There's this notion that gender nonconformity is in of itself a threat to public safety, such that the very presence and existence of trans and gender non-conforming youth is criminalized.

WCT: Tell us how that ties into defunding the police?

AJR: [Queer liberation] is not possible as long as we have policing, surveillance, and punishment, because it is being deployed to police the borders of the gender binary and the borders around what's deemed normative or acceptable ways of loving, being and experiencing pleasure.

WCT: Can you talk about crime as a construct?

AJR: So many of us normalize the notion of crime. We might disagree with certain things being criminalized like weed or public sex, right? We might disagree with the way things are criminalized in discriminatory ways like Black folks being stopped more for traffic offenses. But we don't often question the premise that the state gets to decide which conduct — by who, when, and how — will be punished.

WCT: And that it's often arbitrary—or worse, not.

AJR: We tend to think, well maybe not drugs, maybe not things that are criminalized that are connected to poverty, but surely something like murder. Murder should absolutely be a crime. Well, it's not now for everybody, right? If the president sends a drone over to Yemen and murders hundreds of people, that's not even considered anything but an act of patriotism and a "natural" thing that presidents do.

WCT: Right.

AJR: There's no concept that that's a crime. Cops kill people every day and it's not criminalized. Some people are allowed to act in self-defense and it's not criminalized, but when survivors who experience tremendous amounts of violence defend themselves when no one else will or despite multiple calls for help…

WCT: Then that gets criminalized.

AJR: We have to look at all the things that the state is regulating and punishing and recognize that it's not just about whether there're criminal laws and how they're enforced; it's actually a process of criminalizing groups of people. And then, you can use any law to do it.

WCT: What is one perpetual myth about policing that needs to be put to rest?

AJR: The notion that public safety can be achieved through policing. It just cannot. If it were true, as a country that pours hundreds of billions into policing every year, we would not be experiencing the rates of violence and harm that we do experience. It loots resources from the things that we do actually need to be safe. Forty percent of Chicago's budget goes to cops and that's why we don't have housing we need for unhoused neighbors or support for people with unmet mental health needs, etc.

WCT: If you go by recent media reports, particularly when it comes to Chicago, it would seem that we're in a crime wave.

AJR: What gets reported as crime is more about the political interests it serves than any kind of measure of actual violence or harm. Many things that are violent and harmful are not criminalized, like environmental destruction, wage theft, taking pandemic relief funds and giving them to police instead of to people who need them.

WCT: Thinking about the water in Flint or asset-forfeiture abuse.

AJR: [If] I smoke a blunt on the sidewalk it's not harming anyone in that moment, but in many places that would be criminalized. Things that are framed as nuisances or disorderly, like sitting on a sidewalk when you have nowhere else to sit, etc. Crime stats really aren't an accurate measure of harm and violence, they're a measure of what the state is focusing its energy on through punishing people.

WCT: Again, crime as a construct.

AJR: Crime stats are controlled by cops; the people who produce [the stats] have an interest in what they say, right? And cops have been shown to manipulate them up and down based on whatever their interest is: they want to show that they're doing a good job then they're going to clear a bunch of cases or charge them as lower offenses to make it look like crime is down. If feeling threatened — and they have definitely experienced this sort of deep challenge to their legitimacy in the last couple of years — they're going to come up with numbers that make it look like any challenge to their legitimacy is potentially deadly for all of us.

WCT: With no checks and balances.

AJR: No one checks them. They say homicides are up, are we asking the coroners if that's actually true? Are we asking what even counts as a homicide, which depends on the cops themselves and whether they charge it as a homicide or an accidental death? It also depends on the conditions under which you live. When Chicago didn't have a trauma center on the South side, many things became homicides because it took an hour to get to a trauma center. There're so many factors at play that don't get considered.

WCT: The complexities are rarely mentioned.

AJR: I don't want to deny that there's deadly violence in Chicago, especially not to the families and people who've been affected by violence. We certainly need to look at it, I just don't know that we need to look at it through the eyes of the police and the state who would just as quickly criminalize certain people, lock them up and throw away the key.

WCT: We have a collective carceral mindset.

AJR: We need to look at the violence through the perspective of what would actually prevent this from happening and there's so much evidence that just giving people the things they need to survive reduces violence. One of the ways to change those conditions is making sure people have what they need: housing, income, making sure people have access to ways of being part of their community, making sure people have education that's enlivening, nourishing and creates a sense of possibility.

Purchase No More Police: A Case for Abolition through The New Press at thenewpress.com/books/no-more-police .


This article shared 2453 times since Tue Oct 18, 2022
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email

Out and Aging
Presented By

  ARTICLES YOU MIGHT LIKE

Gay News

RuPaul finds 'Hidden Meanings' in new memoir
2024-03-18
RuPaul Andre Charles made a rare Chicago appearance for a book tour on March 12 at The Vic Theatre, 3145 N. Sheffield Ave. Presented by National Public Radio station WBEZ 91.5 FM, the talk coincided with ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Altercation, mpox research, Univ. of Fla., George Santos, tech battle
2024-03-08
Video footage uploaded to Facebook showed an altercation between a state trooper and two prominent Philadelphia LGBTQ+ leaders, the Washington Blade reported, republishing an article from Philadelphia Gay News. Celena ...


Gay News

Without compromise: Holly Baggett explores lives of iconoclasts Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap
2024-03-04
Jane Heap (1883-1964) and Margaret Anderson (1886-1973), each of them a native Midwesterner, woman of letters and iconoclast, had a profound influence on literary culture in both America and Europe in the early 20th Century. Heap ...


Gay News

There she goes again: Author Alison Cochrun discusses writing journey
2024-02-27
By Carrie Maxwell When Alison Cochrun began writing her first queer romance novel in 2019, she had no idea it would change the course of her entire life. Cochrun, who spent 11 years as a high ...


Gay News

Theater Review: Billy Elliot, The Musical
2024-02-19
Book and Lyrics: Lee Hall; Music: Elton John. At: Paramount Theatre, 23 E. Galena Blvd., Aurora Tickets: 630-896-6666 or Paramountaurora.com; $28-$79. Runs through March 24 Billy Elliot: The Musical may nearly be two decades old, but ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Texas court, police chief, Gentili memorial, Philly controversy
2024-02-09
The Texas Supreme Court heard oral arguments challenging Senate Bill 14, the ban on gender-affirming care that went into effect last September, KERA reported. SB 14 blocks trans minors from accessing gender-affirming medical care, such as ...


Gay News

Seattle LGBTQ+ bars push back against raids
2024-01-30
In Seattle, a group of Capitol Hill gay bars and clubs are teaming with neighborhood queer community leaders Dan Savage and Terry Miller in calling for the state's liquor control board and Seattle police officials to ...


Gay News

USA Boxing adds policy regarding trans competitors
2024-01-04
Boxing's highest national governing body, USA Boxing, added a transgender athlete policy to its rulebook that requires genital-reassignment surgery and strict hormone testing for adults before competition, NBC News noted. ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Women's college, banned books, military initiative, Oregon
2023-12-29
After backlash regarding a decision to update its anti-discrimination policy and open enrollment to some transgender applicants, a Catholic women's college in Indiana will return to its previous admission policy, per The National Catholic Reporter. In ...


Gay News

NATIONAL School items, Miami attack, Elliot Page, Fire Island
2023-12-22
In Virginia, new and returning members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and Fairfax County School Board were inaugurated—with some school board members opting to use banned books on the topics of slavery and LGBTQ+ ...


Gay News

Chicago author's new guide leads lesbian fiction authors toward inspiration and publication
2023-12-07
From a press release: Award-winning and bestselling lesbian fiction author Elizabeth Andre—the pen name for a Chicago-based interracial lesbian couple—has published her latest book, titled Self-Publishing Lesbian Fiction, Write Your ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Tenn. law, banned books, rainbow complex, journalists quit
2023-12-01
Under pressure from a lawsuit over an anti-LGBTQ+ city ordinance, officials in Murfreesboro, Tennessee removed language that banned homosexuality in public, MSNBC noted. Passed in June, Murfreesboro's "public decency" ordinance ...


Gay News

BOOKS Lucas Hilderbrand reflects on gay history in 'The Bars Are Ours'
2023-11-29
In The Bars Are Ours (via Duke University Press), Lucas Hilderbrand, a professor of film and media studies at the University of California-Irvine, takes readers on a historical journey of gay bars, showing how the venues ...


Gay News

BOOKS Owen Keehnen takes readers to an 'oasis of pleasure' in 'Man's Country'
2023-11-27
In the book Man's Country: More Than a Bathhouse, Chicago historian Owen Keehnen takes a literary microscope to the venue that the late local icon Chuck Renslow opened in 1973. Over decades, until it was demolished ...


Gay News

Photographer Irene Young launches book with stellar concerts
2023-11-20
"Something About the Women" was appropriately the closing song for two sold-out, stellar concerts at Berkeley's Freight & Salvage November 19, in celebration of the new book of the same name by Irene Young, the legendary ...


 


Copyright © 2024 Windy City Media Group. All rights reserved.
Reprint by permission only. PDFs for back issues are downloadable from
our online archives.

Return postage must accompany all manuscripts, drawings, and
photographs submitted if they are to be returned, and no
responsibility may be assumed for unsolicited materials.

All rights to letters, art and photos sent to Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago
Gay and Lesbian News and Feature Publication) will be treated
as unconditionally assigned for publication purposes and as such,
subject to editing and comment. The opinions expressed by the
columnists, cartoonists, letter writers, and commentators are
their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature Publication).

The appearance of a name, image or photo of a person or group in
Nightspots (Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times
(a Chicago Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature
Publication) does not indicate the sexual orientation of such
individuals or groups. While we encourage readers to support the
advertisers who make this newspaper possible, Nightspots (Chicago
GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay, Lesbian
News and Feature Publication) cannot accept responsibility for
any advertising claims or promotions.

 
 

TRENDINGBREAKINGPHOTOS







Sponsor


 



Donate


About WCMG      Contact Us      Online Front  Page      Windy City  Times      Nightspots
Identity      BLACKlines      En La Vida      Archives      Advanced Search     
Windy City Queercast      Queercast Archives     
Press  Releases      Join WCMG  Email List      Email Blast      Blogs     
Upcoming Events      Todays Events      Ongoing Events      Bar Guide      Community Groups      In Memoriam     
Privacy Policy     

Windy City Media Group publishes Windy City Times,
The Bi-Weekly Voice of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Community.
5315 N. Clark St. #192, Chicago, IL 60640-2113 • PH (773) 871-7610 • FAX (773) 871-7609.